Health

A vast majority of Indians are devoid of basic and adequate healthcare facilities. Available facilities are also often in deplorable conditions with shortages of medicines, doctors and nursing personnels. In its latest report, World Health Organisation (WHO) identifies India along with other poorest nations in Africa and South Asia as having the greatest shortage of healthcare professionals. India has around 650,000 physicians with a density of 0.60 physicians per 1000 people. In comparison, the U.S. has 2.56 per 1000 and most Western nations have at least four times higher density of doctors than India.

Moreover, India's public health spending is among the lowest in the world at $4 a person per year, less than 1 percent of its gross domestic product. The United States spends about $2,000 a person, or almost 6 percent of gross domestic product.

More troubling is that India has a large numbers of patients with tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS/HIV, leprosy, and other contagious diseases. India lags far behind the Western world in average life expectancy and has much higher infant mortality rates. The maternal mortality rate in India is 407 deaths per 100,000 live births compared with 56 in China and 46 in Sri Lanka.

Tuberculosis (TB) is also one of the leading causes of mortality in India, killing 2 persons every three minute, nearly 1,000 every day. Further, India belongs to the nine countries, in which the number of leprosy patients is the highest. 64% of all new leprosy cases registered worldwide is from India.

There are an estimated 2.5 million cases of cancer in India at any given time. Tobacco-related cancers account for almost one-third of all cancers in India—predominantly head and neck, lung, and esophageal cancers. What is most disheartening is that many of these cancers can either be prevented altogether or treated effectively if detected early.

UNAIDS (the United Nations agency that co-ordinates global efforts to fight HIV) estimates that there were 5.7 million people in India living with HIV by the end of 2005, suggesting that India has a higher number of people living with HIV than any other country in the world.

With a huge percentage of the population affected in some way or the other with these ailments, it is imperative that the healthcare facilities in the country be armed with enough ammunition to fight these ailments. But, unfortunately the country lags behind.

HOPE worldwide provides healthcare facilities to the poor and downtrodden through its primary health clinics, leprosy clinic, tuberculosis control programme, cancer detection programme and HIV/AIDS Targeted Intervention programmes. In the year 2006, close to 200,000 people were touched directly through our healthcare initiatives.